Herbots | 荷兰多德雷赫特镇的派特、姬文和娜塔莉.范德米卫在圣马克森上取得世界一流的成绩。

Last Saturday 20 June there was the flight from Pont St. Maxence in Section 5 and you have to be blind not to see that team Van de Merwe played the competition from the box to the wall. By Team Van de Merwe we mean Peter, Gwen and Nathalie Van de Merwe who each have their own colony at the same address.

Just to clarify. Peter doesn't need an introduction anymore and everybody knows that since ten years or so daughter Gwen has been leading her own colony just as fanatically. But since last year, mama Nathalie also started on her own with the pigeons. The reason was the initiative of the NPO to set up a "Ladies League". A competition for the ladies and only they can provide their youngsters with pink foot rings. A beautiful initiative in which Nathalia is only too happy to participate and so there are 3 fanciers in the Noordendijk 723a in Dordrecht racing with the pigeons.

But let's go back to the race from Pont St. Maxence...307km away from Dordrecht. Gwen had 28 pigeons in the basket, Peter basketed 48 pigeons while Nathalie was with 10 birds at the basket table. Released at 9 am the first pigeon of Gwen was registered at 12h31min and 27 sec. Very short followed, 3 seconds difference, by a pigeon of Peter and 30 seconds later by a pigeon of mama Nathalie. It must have been quite a spectacle and it kept “raining pigeons” at the house of Van de Merwe.

Here are the different results:

Samenspel Drechtsteden - 111 fanciers basketed 2,875 pigeons. The first 16 places (you read it well) were cloked by the Van de Merwe family.
Gwen won: 1st-4th-6th-12th-15th
Peter won: 2nd-7th-8th-9th-10th-11th-14th-16th
Nathalie won: 3rd-5th-13th

In Section 5 - Rayon East there were 433 fanciers who basketed 12.240 pigeons together.
Gwen won: 1st-7th
Peter won: 2nd-11th
Nathalie won: 5th-8th

And here they compete against those other well-known lofts like Verkerk Gerard & Bas and Willem de Bruijn ! In other words, fierce competition

In Section 5 there were 1,264 fanciers who together basketed 33,687 pigeons.
and here the Van de Merwe family scored with places: 2-3-7-9-10-12-13 etc...